Week 4
New Stuff:
The LEGO movie:
I was tempted to go watch this in the cinema when it came out, and I do imagine it would look even better on the big screen. Still looked really cool, though. I gotta remember to check out some behind the scenes stuff, it seems like an insane amount of work went into this movie. I was especially fascinated by how they made things like smoke and waves out of LEGOs.
As for the story, I feel like they could have done more to subvert the whole ~Chosen One~ narrative. I mean, they did! And that was nice and all! But they could've done more with it. Just don't ask me how, I have no idea. Still, I very much enjoyed the movie. It's really funny and charming. The plot twist, for lack of a better word, really surprised me. Not because you couldn't tell it was there, I just thought they'd keep it to little hints here and there. ...this is really hard to talk about without spoilers. <.<''
Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun - Manga:
Is this just an excuse to keep talking about the anime? Maybe. Possibly. Okay yeah, it totally is. I read a few chapters of the manga, but realized very quickly that I wanted to experience all the jokes for the first time in the anime. Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun is a four panel comic strip - there's a Japanese term for it that I can't recall right now. And while the humour works well in this format, I like it even better as a more cohesive story, as presented in the anime. Now that I think about it, the original format is probably why I spend every episode laughing pretty much non-stop: since they're adapting these short strips very faithfully (as far as I can tell) it's just punchline after punchline after glorious punchline.
This show is just so good for me. <3
Orange is the new black season 2:
I'm not sure what changed, but I liked Piper (and by extent the whole show) so much better than I did in the first season. Especially once she gets back from Chicago in episode 3. Maybe it's the lack of Alex? Whom I do like, don't get me wrong, but Piper without her seems much easier for me to like. Or maybe it's just her increase of cynicism, who knows. The point stands, I liked season two a lot more. Vee makes for a great villain, perhaps especially due to how she treats Suzanne. At first I was very touched by their relationship, and then by the end it made me dislike Vee even more than everything else she did.
As for the other characters, I still really like Nicky and her relationship with Morello, Rosa's story line was great, Larry is still a douchebag, Sophia wasn't in nearly enough episodes and O'Neil's scene with the nuns was the best ever. The whole final episode was just great, really. Also Poussey is still my favourite. I liked her back story, even though it...doesn't really make sense? US Army bases don't have German military personnel on them, for obvious reasons. Oh well. The German dialogue was pretty good, though some word choices felt a bit off. I assume the actress playing the girlfriend is German (or at least fluent in it), while Samira Wiley did a pretty good job herself.
I'll definitely keep watching this show now and I'm glad I stuck with it. So, when's season 3 coming out?
ETA: I forgot to mention that I really liked the little looks at the relationship between Piper and her brother that we got in this season. They were really sweet. <3
Hamatora - the Animation:
Fun fact: when I first saw pics of this anime on tumblr I was super confused because I misread the title as 'Hamtaro - the Animation', as in Hamtaro, that old children's anime about hamsters. Yeah. This is also another one of those shows that I started watching, but then lost interest after a few episodes. Still, with the new season having just started, I decided to give it another chance.
Watching Hamatora was. Well. Incredibly frustrating. It's like you can tell that there are some really cool ideas behind everything - the character design look so cool, and there are some interesting things they try to bring across with the animation - but the execution is just nowhere near good enough. The animation is inconsistent as hell, the pacing is all over the place and it almost seems like they couldn't decide where they wanted to go with the show. Sometimes there's wacky things like the triathlon (or the onsen episode, dear god, let's not talk about it), but the show isn't nearly over the top enough to make it work in between the rest of the story. And other times it wants to be serious and deep and a bit dark, but then it gets ruined by what is just frankly bad writing (Birthday and Ratio's story seems really cool, how can you even fuck that up with the writing, Jesus Christ.). I wanted to become invested in these characters, and their back stories seem incredibly interesting, but we never delve deep enough into them to build up a meaningful connection and there is barely any character development. I can't believe I'm saying this, but this anime could've done with a lot more flashbacks. Why they didn't make everyone's past at the academy a much bigger part of the story is a mystery to me. All in all, I really wanted to like this show, but in the end it's just missing something to pull me in and make me get invested.
I watched the three episodes of Re: Hamatora that are out so far, and I'm cautiously optimistic that it might be better. The animation is more consistent, at the very least. I'll keep watching for a while to see where it's going. Also I just found out that the anime is actually set after the manga, so I might check that one out as well, in the hopes of getting some more back story.
Anyway. At some point while watching Hamatora I also figured out that there was another reason why I wanted to like it so badly and why I was so disappointed - it reminds me of Courtesy of Zettai Karen Children: The Unlimited - Hyoubu Kyousuke. I fucking love The Unlimited -Hyoubu Kyousuke. I'll just go watch that now.
Ongoing:
Kuroshitsuji - Book of Circus:
Okay, so this isn't really about the Circus arc, but there's two things I wanted to write about:
1) I just got Grell's death puns, oh my fucking god. I'm so embarrassed by how long it took me. Granted, it doesn't translate into English (basically, she ends sentences with 'death' instead of 'desu', oh god, you're ridiculous), but still.
2) So, Grell's voice actor? While watching the show i kept thinking that he might be the same as the voice of Yata Misaki from Project K and I was right! I was really confused as to why I recognized his voice, but then I realized it's probably because of how often I've listened to Project K drama CD tracks that feature him... <.<''' So, yeah. And then I recognized him again as the voice of Birthday in Hamatora and went to look him up. He's also the voice actor for Shinra from Durarara and Watanuki from xxxHolic, which is really obvious in hindsight. So I guess the point is: I really like Fukuyama Jun's voice.
The LEGO movie:
I was tempted to go watch this in the cinema when it came out, and I do imagine it would look even better on the big screen. Still looked really cool, though. I gotta remember to check out some behind the scenes stuff, it seems like an insane amount of work went into this movie. I was especially fascinated by how they made things like smoke and waves out of LEGOs.
As for the story, I feel like they could have done more to subvert the whole ~Chosen One~ narrative. I mean, they did! And that was nice and all! But they could've done more with it. Just don't ask me how, I have no idea. Still, I very much enjoyed the movie. It's really funny and charming. The plot twist, for lack of a better word, really surprised me. Not because you couldn't tell it was there, I just thought they'd keep it to little hints here and there. ...this is really hard to talk about without spoilers. <.<''
Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun - Manga:
Is this just an excuse to keep talking about the anime? Maybe. Possibly. Okay yeah, it totally is. I read a few chapters of the manga, but realized very quickly that I wanted to experience all the jokes for the first time in the anime. Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun is a four panel comic strip - there's a Japanese term for it that I can't recall right now. And while the humour works well in this format, I like it even better as a more cohesive story, as presented in the anime. Now that I think about it, the original format is probably why I spend every episode laughing pretty much non-stop: since they're adapting these short strips very faithfully (as far as I can tell) it's just punchline after punchline after glorious punchline.
This show is just so good for me. <3
Orange is the new black season 2:
I'm not sure what changed, but I liked Piper (and by extent the whole show) so much better than I did in the first season. Especially once she gets back from Chicago in episode 3. Maybe it's the lack of Alex? Whom I do like, don't get me wrong, but Piper without her seems much easier for me to like. Or maybe it's just her increase of cynicism, who knows. The point stands, I liked season two a lot more. Vee makes for a great villain, perhaps especially due to how she treats Suzanne. At first I was very touched by their relationship, and then by the end it made me dislike Vee even more than everything else she did.
As for the other characters, I still really like Nicky and her relationship with Morello, Rosa's story line was great, Larry is still a douchebag, Sophia wasn't in nearly enough episodes and O'Neil's scene with the nuns was the best ever. The whole final episode was just great, really. Also Poussey is still my favourite. I liked her back story, even though it...doesn't really make sense? US Army bases don't have German military personnel on them, for obvious reasons. Oh well. The German dialogue was pretty good, though some word choices felt a bit off. I assume the actress playing the girlfriend is German (or at least fluent in it), while Samira Wiley did a pretty good job herself.
I'll definitely keep watching this show now and I'm glad I stuck with it. So, when's season 3 coming out?
ETA: I forgot to mention that I really liked the little looks at the relationship between Piper and her brother that we got in this season. They were really sweet. <3
Hamatora - the Animation:
Fun fact: when I first saw pics of this anime on tumblr I was super confused because I misread the title as 'Hamtaro - the Animation', as in Hamtaro, that old children's anime about hamsters. Yeah. This is also another one of those shows that I started watching, but then lost interest after a few episodes. Still, with the new season having just started, I decided to give it another chance.
Watching Hamatora was. Well. Incredibly frustrating. It's like you can tell that there are some really cool ideas behind everything - the character design look so cool, and there are some interesting things they try to bring across with the animation - but the execution is just nowhere near good enough. The animation is inconsistent as hell, the pacing is all over the place and it almost seems like they couldn't decide where they wanted to go with the show. Sometimes there's wacky things like the triathlon (or the onsen episode, dear god, let's not talk about it), but the show isn't nearly over the top enough to make it work in between the rest of the story. And other times it wants to be serious and deep and a bit dark, but then it gets ruined by what is just frankly bad writing (Birthday and Ratio's story seems really cool, how can you even fuck that up with the writing, Jesus Christ.). I wanted to become invested in these characters, and their back stories seem incredibly interesting, but we never delve deep enough into them to build up a meaningful connection and there is barely any character development. I can't believe I'm saying this, but this anime could've done with a lot more flashbacks. Why they didn't make everyone's past at the academy a much bigger part of the story is a mystery to me. All in all, I really wanted to like this show, but in the end it's just missing something to pull me in and make me get invested.
I watched the three episodes of Re: Hamatora that are out so far, and I'm cautiously optimistic that it might be better. The animation is more consistent, at the very least. I'll keep watching for a while to see where it's going. Also I just found out that the anime is actually set after the manga, so I might check that one out as well, in the hopes of getting some more back story.
Anyway. At some point while watching Hamatora I also figured out that there was another reason why I wanted to like it so badly and why I was so disappointed - it reminds me of Courtesy of Zettai Karen Children: The Unlimited - Hyoubu Kyousuke. I fucking love The Unlimited -Hyoubu Kyousuke. I'll just go watch that now.
Ongoing:
Kuroshitsuji - Book of Circus:
Okay, so this isn't really about the Circus arc, but there's two things I wanted to write about:
1) I just got Grell's death puns, oh my fucking god. I'm so embarrassed by how long it took me. Granted, it doesn't translate into English (basically, she ends sentences with 'death' instead of 'desu', oh god, you're ridiculous), but still.
2) So, Grell's voice actor? While watching the show i kept thinking that he might be the same as the voice of Yata Misaki from Project K and I was right! I was really confused as to why I recognized his voice, but then I realized it's probably because of how often I've listened to Project K drama CD tracks that feature him... <.<''' So, yeah. And then I recognized him again as the voice of Birthday in Hamatora and went to look him up. He's also the voice actor for Shinra from Durarara and Watanuki from xxxHolic, which is really obvious in hindsight. So I guess the point is: I really like Fukuyama Jun's voice.